‘A god is coming. His symbol is the three hanging knots; his presence is in the runes. When twenty-four are in one person, he is here, and the wolf will come to kill him.’
‘You have meddled with devils,’ said Loys.
He longed to see. He took the bag from around his neck and felt inside, pulling out the flint, the lamp and the oil-soaked cloth. Very carefully he tore off a strip of the cloth. He placed it near the flint, which he struck against the iron. Quickly he had a spark, which he blew to a small flame. Now he could light the lamp.
The chamber was almost a sphere, just big enough to stand in. Loys was sitting on a shelf of rock with the wolfman beside him.
‘What now?’ said Loys.
‘This is the world city. It is a flowering of the magical forces of the well. This is where the world tree draws its water. We’re on our way to that well.’
‘And if the god you’re seeking doesn’t come?’
‘He will come. The god is in three forms. He is one of them. The Vala’s vision revealed it. Beneath the comet, at that battle, the god who sleeps with the head at his feet. It was a sign — as Odin drank the waters of the well, next to the headless Mimir so the god would be found. He should have killed me when I asked.’
‘I thought you sought to kill him.’
‘He cannot be killed.’
‘I think Basileios can kill all the world if he so chooses. But he is far away.’
‘He will come.’
‘How can you avoid your fate?’
‘At the well. I will receive insight.’
‘How do you know where it is?’
‘I can hear it.’
‘What can you hear?’
‘The runes. There are runes within it. They are calling to others.’
He stood and climbed to the top of the chamber. A small tunnel led away, scarcely wider than his shoulders. The wolfman wriggled in. Loys had no alternative but to follow, pushing the lamp before him. It was not even a crawl. He went forward like a snake, writhing on his belly, progressing by tiny increments. He had a terrible feeling of claustrophobia, a desire to breathe freely without the tunnel pressing in on his ribcage. He would have lacked the courage to go on if the wolfman had not been before him. Pulling himself through, using only his fingertips at points because his arms were so restricted, he found it very difficult to see, his head forced down by the narrowness of the tunnel. He moved the lamp on, fighting down panic.
He had to go on, for Beatrice. He didn’t accept what the wolfman was telling him but it was clear there was demonic involvement. If Beatrice was caught up in this, he needed to get her out of it. That gave him strength.
His knees were raw, his elbows too. He went on, moving the lamp a little, snaking forward, resting, moving the lamp. The darkness around him seemed so tight, like a great hand that could reach out at any moment and snuff out his little light.
Ahead of him, a light wavered. The lamp was taken from him. The wolfman signalled for Loys to be silent then helped him out. They were in another small cave, but this one was half flooded from a waterfall that tumbled down from a tunnel that entered near the ceiling.
The water poured away down another low tunnel. In there was the light, not quite torchlight but a soft and constant red. The wolfman climbed down through the stream, his movements inaudible beneath the trickling of the water.
Loys strained to listen. There were voices. A mumble of words, a drone.
‘In the sacred waters where the three streams meet,
Goddess who is three in one,
Goddess of the night and of the dark of the night,
Here by the waters
I pay the price of lore.’
He recognised the voice now. It was unquestionably that of the chamberlain.
Suddenly the voice faltered. Above him a skittle-skattle sound of someone bumping down the stream bed, a cough and a curse. Someone else was coming.
46
In the cave’s pool sat a dead girl. Elai knew she was dead by the coldness of her hands, her absence of breath. The ritual of herbs and meditations had worked, and she had gone to the threshold of where she needed to be.
In those three streams were the fates of all men. In that pool waters entwined, eddied and knotted to weave the skein of human destiny. Three faces of the goddess Hecate, three fates, three Norns — the name of those women came so naturally to her — three streams whose flow not even the gods could resist.
But he had tried to resist. What was his name? Odin. Her mother had said the name and though it was strange to her, the syllables seemed to resonate in her bones. Her ancestors had followed that grim fellow, the waters told her.
She put her hand above her to touch the stream that flowed into the pool.
She said its name. Uthr. What was. To her right another stream trickled down. She said its name. Verthani. What is. A third entered in front of her under the surface of the water — she could feel its flow. She said its name. Skuld. What must be. The language was strange to her but completely comprehensible. Not the Greek her mother used to worship the goddess. Older, far older. She thought of Odoacer, who had taken his wolf warriors to Rome, who had made the emperor kneel. Had he spoken that way, her mighty ancestor?
Her fingers played in the flow of the unseen stream. It wound and twisted in her hands. Its movement fascinated her. On impulse she went to where the stream left the pool, put her fingers into its sucking flow. It was so seductive. It did not feel like water at all, but rather like an endless length of beautiful thread, soft and pliable, moving through her hands.
A rhyme came into her mind.
Thence come the women strong in wisdom,
Three to the dark waters down beneath the tree.
Uthr is one named,
Verthani the next, and Skuld the third.
Mightily wove they the web of fate,
While Bralund’s towns were trembling all.
And there the golden threads they wove.
And in the moon’s hall fast they made them,
The wyrd of men and gods.
One of those names resonated above the others: Skuld. What must be.
‘That is my name,’ she said into the ghost light of the rocks. ‘Something is owed here.’ Her voice came back to her as the dead echo of the small chamber.
The well had asked for her death and that of her mother. It had showed her clearly what was her fate, and that of so many others if she was too weak to make the sacrifice.
Death, eternally, again and again, agony and torture, denial and madness. Some things were in the water, bright shining things, and she wanted pick them up, as if her soul was a shrine to be decked with candles and trinkets.
What were these things? Shapes, symbols, runes. That was the word. What did these runes do? They held the universe together. They were the connections between things — the things that allowed sense and reason. They were understanding — the foundations and the structure of the sane mind. But they were not meant to be
